This invention relates a weaving heddle made of a strip material and a process for making the heddle. The invention relates more particularly to the formation of the heddle end eyes which, as known, permit the heddles to be lined up and hung in heddle frames.
It is known that weaving heddles have been used for many years in many weaving mills and it is not surprising that certain limits in efficiency have been reached. Since the cross-sectional dimensions of the metal strip used in making the weaving heddle have essentially remained unchanged, the cost of polishing remains low. Moreover unhardened steel strip material has been utilized in most cases. Both such factors allow for the production of a low cost heddle but also one which is not particularly efficient. Even with the great advancements in the weaving technology, such heddles are still used in very modern facilities because the mechanical life-span of the heddles is about the same as the limited useful life of the thread eyelet. The thread eyelet may however become damaged by modern synthetic fibers quite quickly to a degree that weaving is not made possible. Even more expensive materials such as hardened steel do not produce in most cases improved conditions in proportion to the higher expense. Thus there is a great deal of interest in the textile industry for a more efficient design of the traditional type of heddle.
Such heddles as they are currently used in great numbers, are generally disclosed in detail in U.S. Pat. No. 748,713. The end eyes as therein described are made by punching out an elongated rectangular opening from the strip. Thereafter the narrow sides of the opening are squeezed-pressed resulting in the longitudinal sides being deformed and the opening being enlarged. One disadvantage is the formation of wedge-shaped pressed areas at the narrow sides of the opening. These make contact with the heddle slide bar that runs through the openings such that these areas become damaged quite quickly thereby rendering the heddles unserviceable.
German patent 180525 discloses an improvement over the U.S. Pat. No. 748,713 in the formation of heddle end eyes by first deforming the area of the end eye by squeeze-pressing it into the desired width and then punching out the weakened sections so formed. It appears that a substantially strengthened end eye is produced by the removal of the thin pressed sections. However, formation of the end eyes according to such a method can be realized with only a very soft original material which diminishes the overall advantages offered by the end formation technique.